


Imperceptibly

by scintillio_coll



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Excessive Italics, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, meandering nonsense, slowburn, what have I done?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 15:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintillio_coll/pseuds/scintillio_coll
Summary: “You think we’re friends,” Keith sounds a touch smug, enough that the Lance of a few months ago would have gone coldblooded, but now he finds the opposite- friction and static and a drop of battery acid in his guts.He scowls at him, “Technically, I said-”Keith rolls his eyes, “Shut up, you think of me as your friend. I’m totally your friend and you’re probably not even mad about it.”





	Imperceptibly

**Author's Note:**

> Putting this up 24 hours before season 4 so it can be rendered non-canon compliant asap!

Lance really, _honestly,_ doesn’t like Keith. 

He doesn’t like his shitty jabs and bad attitude and weird jacket that is wildly impractical. He doesn’t like his crazy temper and defensive body language and how his only mode of self-preservation is feigned apathy. 

Lance doesn’t like finding out how easy he was to forget. That he doesn’t really blame him. 

It all rubs him the wrong way, is like a hand against the grain. The only thing about Keith that he recognizes is that put-upon martyr thing he does. Lance’s older sister did that sometimes, mothering the rest of them with equal resentment and negligence. 

It makes sense in a way, he and Dania always fought the most, butting heads and banging doors on their way through puberty. Keith just brings it out of him, this perverse itch to _needle_ at the person needling at you. 

The exaggerated rivalry is like, almost half real, even if it didn’t take root in his head until after Keith was gone and Iverson kept rubbing his nose in it. In retrospect, he knows it’s not Keith who made him feel the need to measure them side by side.

But when he manipulates Keith into ramming blind into the dusty and impenetrable surface of Arus, it still feels like a win, even if he crashes, too.

He gets it though, ok, how _it looks._ He’s watched enough rom-coms with his sisters and learned all about _tropes_ in AP Lit. So when Pidge says things like, _I think the lady doth protest_ while he rants, whatever. If they assume it’s all rooted in jealousy and Lance’s rampant Impostor Syndrome, that. is. fine. He knows that's only part of it.

The antagonism, the lack of patience, it’s because he genuinely can’t stand the guy.  

Keith is selfish. Like really really _super_ selfish. In a way that someone with 11 first cousins will never be capable of, not when you’re keeping an eye on the toddlers, making sure they don’t drown themselves. It belies an unhappy truth, he finally figures it out once they’ve been there a while: Keith has only ever worried about himself. 

It makes Lance sad, the thought of all that potential for feeling just wasted, makes him miss the buzz of a full house, the way his blood would practically boil when Dania struck a nerve. 

But knowing that Keith has been conditioned for solitude doesn’t help when he suggests they leave Allura, when he runs off mid-mission, when he hides his Galra knife. Because…

_Not cool, Keith_

Lance might be flighty, and flirty, and dragging in the morning, but his _priorities_ , in all of this, have been above board. Which is more than he can say for most of his teammates. 

 

*

 

Lance doesn’t remember their bonding moment. Doesn’t really remember too much from before it, either. 

So apparently _Pidge_ took out Sendak’s arm, not him, even if Lance’s swears it’s what he aimed for. But, _cool._

And if he said they were a good team, Keith supposedly grasping his hand, so what? 

They are. 

Lance isn’t unfair _._ He can at least bring that to the table. When you grow up in constant familial company, you learn how to value someone even if you don’t necessarily _like_ them, manage to be on the same team because you are _on the same team._

But Keith has never been a part of a something like that before, been dependent and been _depended_ on like that. He is the right arm that’s willing to sever himself off. Forget that it’s literally only together that they do something miraculous. 

Lance isn’t going to waste any emotional energy fighting that. It’s bad for the skin. Keith will always jump to burn his short fuse, it’s not Lance’s job to drag him back to reality. 

 

 *

 

They’re true, all the things he says after Shiro’s pulled a _desaparecidos_ and left them one pilot short. That’s Lance being fair- Keith’s a hothead, he’s impatient, he won’t be a good leader. And, for a while there, he’s right. 

It’s not hard to grasp, Keith is in hell. He’s angry and lonely and frustrated and scared and Lance _gets it,_ even if the nuance and depth of it all is probably beyond him. His loss isn’t as great as Keith’s, his new responsibilities not as heavy. 

The worst part isn’t even that Keith is going to get one of them killed (because at this rate he will and they’ve made peace with the odds), but that he’s not entirely sure Keith would _care._

He gets tired of screaming into his coms, the tight anxiety of being the righthand to a total headcase, the constant urge to taunt _I told you so_. 

He imagines what his mom would do, which is why he mostly keeps his mouth shut. Just tries to be present, tries to be unbiased, tries to wear the same expression of straightforward support that she most likely faked half the time. 

Eventually, he gets used to Red’s controls, the mulleted dumbass learns to listen, and Lance realizes that, _fuck, no,_ it is his job.

 

*

 

It’s a tough moment, when he goes to Keith for advice. 

For one, Keith might just outright agree, say yeah, we should cut the dead weight. Then there’s looking for comfort from someone who is simply…not very good at it, who frankly seems to repel all forms of intimacy. And last, because it strikes Lance that he’s got an issue and the only person he can talk to is his _least favorite person_ in the world (well, on the ship, so out of _six people)._ And none of them speak Spanish and some of these feelings defy translation.

His priorities, his _heart,_ is still in the right place. He can find something to do, he’s not giving up that easily, but he’ll step aside if that’s best. 

Keith says something lame about math and Pidge that doesn’t fucking help at all. But it looks like he’s trying, that he wants to say the right thing. It reminds Lance of how infinitesimally nicer he was to his sisters when the bathroom garbage filled with crinkled wrappers and wads of toilet paper. Not because he was cliche enough to be scared of hormonal women, but because they seemed so genuinely _miserable._

It’s the kind of conversation where the other is _valued_ but not really _understood._

Yeah, Lance is fair and maybe he respects Keith now, too. It’s _a little_ easier to tolerate the new shape he’s been hammered into. He doesn’t grate against him as much, a knife dragged across fish scales. 

Keith could eventually turn into someone Lance trusts instead of someone he has to hold back. 

 

_*_

 

He thinks he knows what that means, the roles they’ve all been shaken into, until Keith starts making some good calls and Shiro keeps making some really really bad ones.

They’re holed up in his room this time, he's the one answering the door instead of the one knocking. Lance jiggles his foot from his bed while Keith paces, not nervous so much as full of nerves. 

“I didn’t expect you to take my side,” Keith finally begins. 

He has his hands out, immediately defensive, “It’s a better plan, you know it, I can say it!”

Keith stills with a huff, “We’ve never said _‘no’_ to Shiro before.” 

“Shiro doesn’t pilot the Black Lion,” Lance says it a bit flat. “For whatever reason. Besides, I don’t think he’s…” 

He stops there, because they’ve been in each other’s heads hundreds of times by now and the doubt is a creeping thing in all of them. 

“I’m just trying to do what’s right, beyond saving the goddamn universe,” Keith spills a bit desperately. And no part of it sounds like Dania, tattling when she found cigarettes in his room because _she knew best for him._ Keith sounds too tired for condescension. 

“I know, Keith,” he assures him, voice sincere because he is sincere. Knows, beyond _valuing_ him, that he’s probably not the guy who’d run off anymore. Definitely never let one of them become a discarded casualty, left behind and forgotten. 

Of all he people on the ship, he’s still the first Lance would offer to the airlock if a sacrifice was required. But he doesn’t ever really _want_ that anymore, which is saying something. 

 

*

 

“No!” Pidge screams, bayard swinging and tearing through a sentry as Lance watches from the mezzanine above, picking off anything besides his team that moves. She’s honed in and locked onto the rectangular glass window at the end of the hall, he can just make out the two cloudy figures in pods she’s sprinting towards. “ _No!”_

Allura is still working on the last of the sentries, so Keith makes it to Pidge first, arm on her shoulder, slowing her to a quick but controlled stop in a move that’s too Shiro. He whispers something in her ear. 

She nods and an instant later-

_“Lance, Hunk, regroup now at the end of Western Storage Block D, we need to proceed together.”_

Lance vaults easily over the rail, armor absorbing most of the shock when he lands. He jogs quickly to Allura’s side, still as a statue before the viewing window. Her hand is raised to her mouth, open wide in both horror and confusion.

When Lance looks, he does that same. 

 

*

 

“Hear me out,” Hunk begins, hunched over in the corner of his lion’s head, the four youngest Paladins crammed into the confined space. “Maybe they’re _both_ Shiro.” 

Lance groans, Keith just scowls, and Pidge slashes her palm through the air as if Hunk’s words could be swatted away.

“What…do we do…with the other one,” she grits out, not a question so much as a call to order. Pidge’s first priority had always been Matt, unwavering and singleminded, and now he’s down in the med-bay. Lance doesn’t begrudge her that, though, the fear that she’d take off is something as distant as that long forgotten bonding moment. 

Slowly all eyes turn to Keith, their de facto leader even with two Shiroganes on board. Keith just looks at Lance, and it’s asking for permission and hoping for support and exhausted and bitter all at once.

“What’s most in the spirit of Voltron?” he says too lightly, it makes Lance want to give him a day off. “Room, cell, or knocked out in a pod?” 

They settle on pod. To his credit, Clone Shiro understands.

 

*

 

Coran runs a lot of tests while the three are in their tubes. Pidge pores over ever bit of data and mechanically chews her lip. Keith looks ill but under control. In the end it’s pretty simple. When Shiro, the newly rediscovered original model, stumbles out, cold air billowing and his legs like wind-torn saplings, Black roars triumphantly from deep within the Castle. 

There are a lot of questions. And voices. Allura knocks over a tray of metal things and the mice go sprinting. Pidge cries in her brother’s arms and something bizarre rears up in Lance to hear her called _Katie._ Because that is someone he has never met _._ It reminds him that every single one of them left a whole life behind. Routines, gym memberships, unpaid tuition, a favorite take-out place, t-shirts stuffed into closets. Or at least the Altean equivalents. 

Entire identities completely removed from who they’d become. 

_Voy bien, Mama?_

He can only imagine what some drunk teens will make of Keith’s murder shack.  

He stays exactly as long as he’s supposed to, interjecting thoughts and theories at the appropriate moments, tossing out a couple loose jokes to keep everyone from literally combusting. But even after adjusting beautifully to the awesome and all-consuming _not normal_ that is his life, this is the kind of sci-fi that feels unbelievable, like _destabilizing_. 

He takes a minute.

He’s been alone on the observation deck for a while, wondering if the family’s ancient rooster is still alive, when the door slides open smoothly. Lance really, _honesty_ would like to know. 

“Don’t do that thing again, ok?” Keith mutters, fidgeting in a barely restrained way, as if he desperately wants to throw his hands up. 

Lance glares down the single inch between their heights, reveling in every millimeter, “Excuse me?”

Keith refuses to make eye contact, instead he simply keeps staring outside. His fingers twitch again and he looks flushed, distracted. Lance wonders why he’s here instead of camped outside the med-bay doors like Pidge. 

“You’re necessary,” he shifts his weight from foot to foot, now a tad closer to Lance, now a bit farther away. 

“That’s what I should have said to you last time. We need you just as much as everyone else. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but you are…important. To the team. To me, too.”

Keith shoves his hands into his pockets, albeit somewhat halfheartedly, and begins to stride out of the room.

“So don’t do that self-doubt thing again ‘cause it’s a waste of our time!” he calls over his shoulder. 

Lance turns back to the black eternity outside, willing down the surge of static in his chest. Keith’s still not great at reassurance, but it seems like he couldn’t help himself, their reluctant bond laid as bare and raw as the stars burning before him. 

 

*

 

At the end of Freshman year, when Lance asked Lucia Nelson on a movie date, she didn’t really say ‘no.’ She said he was her _best friend, just like so special, Lance, really_ and that’s why she would never want to kiss him. 

He didn’t cry or anything, he wasn’t as brokenhearted as all that. But everyone had heard about it by final bell and all he wanted was to skulk home in solitude, purposely lagging to avoid walking with company.

Dania was waiting for him at the gate all the same, one hip cocked out, tapping at her wrist even though she never wore a watch. 

She shaded her eyes from the sun overhead, shooting him a lopsided frown as he kicked a small, irregular rock down the sidewalk, the familiar and eternal humidity dampening their matching brown hair. 

“She’s always been full of shit,” Dania finally said about halfway home.   

Lance didn’t respond, just fixed his gaze on the rock as they approached it again. 

“You are special,” Dania said quietly, although more matter of fact than soft or comforting. “Way more than you really think.”

He nodded, gulping because his eyes had suddenly started burning and his throat felt blocked up, already full to the brim with a million other emotions, “Thanks, Danno.”

“Don’t call me that,” she responded, but it was all muscle memory, rehearsed countless times, ringing with more reflex than ire. He skidded the rock forward, she bumped his shoulder with hers. 

“And _I’m_ your best friend,” she stated. 

At that, maybe two tears had crawled down Lance’s cheek like a couple of fat caterpillars. Because, _yeah, fuck, she really was._

 

*

 

Keith is not that. Seriously, his best friend is Hunk, with the rest of the crew falling into a shifting amalgamation after that. Keith is usually still last. 

However, to be fair (and Lance is _way fair,_ remember), there are only 6 other people. Like, when Sendak was on board, Keith definitely wasn’t last _then_. 

Lance digresses, the point is that Keith is his friend now. Not his best friend (still Hunk) or even second-best (usually Pidge but honestly sometimes Coran), but his friend. And, just like the urge to _needle,_ it happens naturally, he doesn’t even notice when it transitions into a new reality. 

Feeling love for people. Lance finds himself doing that unconsciously, too. 

 

*

 

Kolivan comes to collect the clone. Keith makes him promise to keep him safe, let him fight, let him find an identity beyond his slightly off hair cut and weird moods (it’s so _obvious_ now, Lance is actually pretty disappointed in himself). 

The pods and meds and rest heal Shiro physically, but if his nerves were a little shot before… Lance refuses to be relieved when he opts to run missions from the Castle for a while, stepping into a position where he and Allura command on equal footing at home base, but Keith is still the head when Voltron is flying. 

But if he _let himself_ , it would be a relief, just because he still feels like the steel ball in an arcade game most of the time and another shake up seems _excessive_. 

It’s impossible to tell how Keith feels about it, but Lance hasn’t forgotten how quickly he was willing to give up his seat, his lion, last time. Lance isn’t the only trying not to repeat history. 

He’d ask, maybe he should, you know, right hand and all that, supposed to be some kind of support system and whatever. But Lance is still so young, he can admit when he’s out of his depth.

Instead, he volunteers to pass tools to Keith through Black’s pried up floor panels, oil and unknown space gunk streaking his arms to the elbows. 

“Didja find it?” he calls to the shadowy maw of wires and circuits. Keith had disappeared completely. He pauses to listen for an answer. 

“Fall in, Mullet?” he shouts again. This time there’s a faint grunt as a reply. 

After a few minutes, Keith’s sweaty, tied back mop appears suddenly out of the darkness, hefting himself out, “Crack in one of the hydraulic reservoirs, didn’t take too long.” 

Lance stands, hoists one side of the heavy metal grate, sliding it back into place with Keith’s help on the other end, “Well, I’m glad you didn’t really need any help from me, the lions usually tell me what to do.” 

Keith just shrugs, swiping a halfway clean rag to wipe his hands, “It’s cool, I enjoyed your company.” 

It sounds maybe _too_ sincere. 

“You could hardly hear me down there,” he gestures to the lion’s innards below. 

Keith just shoots him that little smile he’s perfecting, the one that’s slowly forcing Lance to reassess everything he thought he knew about the guy, and starts down the ramp, “Exactly.”

It takes Lance a second too long to process that and Keith seems proud of how his cheeks color. 

“Hey!”  

(“ _Classic_ Galra Keith,” Hunk will chuckle later when Lance replays the jab.)

 

*

 

It’s unfortunate but understandable, even if it makes life in the Castle approximately 27% more hazardous.

Matt _loves_ Slav. 

From the instant the alien had returned to the fold, it had been non-stop chatter about planck units and luminiferous ether and whatever the fuck _gravitoelectromagnetism_ is. Even Pidge and Hunk have trouble keeping up with the immediate shorthand the two adopt. 

There must be a method it all because their chaotic partnership yields results. Just that morning- 

“Worm hole generators in each lion?” Coran asks in disbelief. “Is that possible?”

“We’re still quite a ways off but theoretically…” Matt smiles broadly and launches into an excited explanation while Lance _really does try_ to pay attention.

Pidge and Hunk are far more into the science behind it all and, after some begging, are loaned out to assist with tests measuring the lion’s quintessence. 

 _That,_ Lance decides, means he and Keith get a day off.

It’s not exactly peaceful, the morning has hardly begun when the sound of small explosions start to echo through the hallways, followed by the kind of uninhibited raucous laughter that can only come from unapologetically smart people. 

Shiro flinches from his seat in the common room, but with everyday, basic annoyance and Keith gets an endless kick out of that, teasing _patience yields focus._ Lance finds himself enjoying all of it, content in the ridiculous, unfathomable _not normal_ that is at least familiar.

“They’re going to blast a hole in the bulkhead!” Shiro grinds out as the ruckus continues, standing just to stomp around. 

“Watch,” Keith stage whispers to Lance, he’d approached silently from behind, leaning over the back of the couch to be level with his ear, “You can see his hair go whiter.” 

Lance sputters out half a laugh before he can slap a hand over his mouth, and Keith practically vibrates at the outraged glare Shiro shoots them, his eyes bright with an unstoppable kind of pleasure. 

“I blame you,” Shiro says with mounting frustration, jabbing metal fingers towards Lance. “He barely had a sense of humor on Earth.” 

Lance glances up at Keith, but there’s still just open playfulness. “I thought you'd be happy he’s been makin’ friends!” Lance volleys back with a grin. 

Another distant blast rocks up from somewhere below, accompanied by what could be shouts of ‘ _Success!’_ Shiro groans, shoots them both a dramatic salute, and jogs out of the room.

The couch cushions give under Keith’s weight as he springs lightly over the back, landing rear-first on the section next to him.

He waits for Lance to meet his gaze, that stupid little smile is back, the one that somehow seems mocking and hopeful at the same time. And… _weird,_ had this _always_ been what Keith looked like? Had he been…attractive before? _Objectively?_

“You think we’re friends,” Keith sounds a touch smug, enough that the Lance of a few months ago would have gone coldblooded, but now he finds the opposite- friction and static and a drop of battery acid in his guts.

He scowls at Keith but it’s all obvious farce, “ _Technically,_ I said- _”_

Keith rolls his eyes, “Shut up, you think of me as your friend. I’m _totally_ your friend and you’re probably not even mad about it.” 

“And?” Lance shouts ridiculously, “What’s it to you, _Pal?_ Were you so desperate to hear it, _Amigo? Buddy? Homeboy?”_

Keith snorts, his face is still pleased, but it shades a little hesitant and thoughtful. 

“Well, we are, right? Friends?” Lance sputters before he can think of something smoother to say.

Keith just crosses his arms, slipping suddenly back into their banter mode, “I don’t know, Lance. We certainly are something.” 

 

 

*

 

“What’s like…the opposite of being Friendzoned?” Lance asks too casually, running a fingertip over one of Pidge’s more sensitive projects.

She wisely decides not to respond. 

  

*

 

Lance figures it out himself.

They’re trudging through a jungle on a planet whose name can’t be pronounced with only one tongue, still a couple _dobashes_ away from the rendezvous point, going over some basic Spanish vocab Keith had barely retained in 7th grade.

“No, dude, it goes,” Lance sighs theatrically and grabs Keith’s palm, his left hand lifting to point out Keith’s fingers, “ _Meñique-_ pinkie, _anular_ \- ring..“ 

Lance’s eyes dart up to his face, pausing just to see if he’s paying attention, and Keith is staring down at their hands so hard Lance wonders if his weird gloves will burst into flames. He does that nervous shifty thing that brushes his shoulder against Lance’s every other heartbeat, and Lance remembers that no really _touches_ Keith all that much. 

That’s Keith- conditioned for solitude. His lonely and mangled past always inspired a kind of well-meaning sympathy in Lance, as long as his issues weren’t screwing things up or getting in the way. Lance learned how to work around the temper, ignore the shitty attitudes, be on the same team just because they were _on the same team._

But now, watching Keith struggle between discomfort and calm and rage and determination and whatever old, Earthbound feelings still echo around his chest makes Lance feel…protective. And, like…warm or whatever.

“I remember middle, _medio,”_ Keith murmurs and Lance realizes he’s let the silence linger and stretch. 

“Some people also call it…” the word gets stuck in Lance’s mouth as soon as it hits his tongue. It rolls around his head like a foreign, unrecognizable thing because when he thinks it, when it clicks into place with everything already present, the automatic associations take him by surprise. 

_Oh_

He looks down at their hands again, not necessarily clasped or holding, just touching and close and it reminds him of the bonding moment he desperately wants to recall, wishes he could get back to put everything about Keith into more context. 

(He considered asking Coran for an Altean Brain Scanner or something. _Technology that cannot be explained by science alone_ and all that.)

Keith’s face goes from questioning to confused to nervous to maybe disappointed, but he hides that last one well. 

Lance is saved from anymore thought or naming anymore fingers when the brush thins and the shuttle appears and Keith disengages their hands with a short exhale.  

 

*

  

He’s almost to the doorway of Pidge’s lab when he hears Keith’s voice ask how many ways you can say ‘middle finger’ in Spanish.

 

*

 

Lance didn’t give it a lot thought when he asked out Lucia Nelson end of freshman year. She was cute and smart and _there_ so he went for it. He had the blues for the rest of the week, his dad gave him a pep talk and his sisters were _imperceptibly_ nicer. After school let out he didn’t have to see her for a full two months, and when they met again in September, it took a second to recall her name, like looking a stranger with a familiar face. 

He realizes now, so belated and way past the point of no return, because they’re in space, right, fighting real life monsters and he can’t try to sneak home if he gets embarrassed, that he recognized Keith by his _hair._ After _months,_ he still knew the guy by the literal back of his head. 

He wonders what his sister would think of that, of Keith, of all the ways he has changed save for making Lance’s blood boil the same as always. _‘This one’s got edges, Muñeco,’_ Dania would warn him. ‘ _Won’t make it easy.’_

Lance knows that, knows it better than most of them. But he’s unavoidably older, been in space a lot longer, and grown up next to this guy, this _man_. They’ve won together and lost (more) together and bled and cried and longed for things that can’t be described. 

They’ve become something…important. That’s the word Keith used before. 

Lance thinks about how they all fall into place. Hunk, obviously, is still his best friend. Pidge (sometimes Coran) is second. 

But Keith…

He finds him on the observation deck, watching the cold and silent debris from their latest battle drift by with a kind of upright stoicism Lance never thought him capable. He steps lightly beside him, their shoulders brushing because he chose to stand that close. 

“We’re not.” 

Keith glances at him, up the single inch between their heights, eyebrows raised in question,”Not what?”

It seems unjust for a moment that he’s the one that has to say it, to take the final step when he only recently realized where they were headed. But to be fair (and Lance. is. fair.), Keith _has_ put in a lot of the legwork. 

“We’re not friends, are we?” 

Keith doesn’t look at him, he just studies his hands, pulls his stupid gloves off slowly. 

“I don’t think you’re exactly my friend, Lance.”

When they’re off, he let’s his hands drop again, knuckles brushing against Lance’s. 

“But I am…” he swallows thickly, “something?”

Their middle fingers hook.

Keith smiles that dumb little smile, this time tilted towards self-deprecation, and finally looks him in the eye, “Yeah, definitely, definitely something.” 

So Lance shifts his body a bit more towards Keith and leans in a little. Keith takes the hint and puts his other hand on Lance’s shoulder and when that goes well, he moves to kiss his mouth. 

Lance let’s him because…it’s what Lance was hoping for anyway and maybe this is exactly what being the right arm means. Maybe Keith was aways this cute, _objectively,_ and so what if he can’t have that bonding moment back, this one probably makes up for it.

**Author's Note:**

> It's not used often anymore, but the middle finger can be called 'dedo corazón'.
> 
> In my head the Galra threw anyone they cloned into pods in some medical storage facility. Since they found Matt down there, everyone lives in content fear of someday running into his super awkward double.
> 
> Also, this fandom is scary as shit.


End file.
